2nd Chance - James Patterson [87]
“Hey!”
“Hey back at you, Lindsay.”
I knew Claire…. I knew her look when she’d found what she expected and had put doubt to rest. And I knew the look when it was not so kosher.
This time, she was definitely wearing that not-kosher look.
“You didn’t find any tattoo, did you?” I said.
She shook her head. Her expression couldn’t have been more troubled if she had found something culpable about Edmund, or one of her sons.
I motioned her in and shut the door. “Okay, so what did you find?”
She shrugged somberly. “I guess I found out why Coombs missed.”
Chapter 106
CLAIRE SAT DOWN and started to explain. “I was doing a routine histology, in the substantia nigra—”
“In English, Claire,” I cut in. “S’il vous plaît? Por favor?”
She smiled. “I scooped some cells, mid-brain. Coombs was hit nine times. Eight from the front. One from the rear. That one smacked into his cervical spine. It’s the only reason I would have been in there in the first place. I was looking for a specific cause of death.”
“So what did you find?”
Her gaze bore right through me. “A marked absence of neurons… live nerve cells.”
I sat upright. My heart was in my throat. “Meaning what, Claire?”
“Meaning… Coombs had Parkinson’s, Lindsay. And not an unadvanced case.”
Parkinson’s… My first thought was, That’s why he missed. That I had been so damn lucky…
Then, watching the look of blank-eyed nullity grow into alarm on Claire’s face, I knew it wasn’t so simple.
“Lindsay, someone with Coombs’s stage of Parkinson’s could never have pulled off those shots.”
My mind went back to the scene at the La Salle Heights Church… Tasha Catchings, felled by that incredible shot… And Art Davidson, a single bullet hole in his head… The bullet had come through the window from an adjoining roof, at least a hundred yards away.
I fixed on Claire’s eyes. “You’re sure about this?”
She nodded slowly. “I’m not a neurologist…” But then with unwavering clarity, “Yes, I’m sure. I’m absolutely positive. His state of Parkinson’s could never have allowed the necessary interaction between hand and brain for those shots. His case was too progressed.”
With an almost nauseating chill, I flashed through all the things we knew about our killer. We had been certain that Chimera had a tattoo. But Coombs didn’t have one. Then he barely grazed me on the steps of the Hall from point-blank range. And now this, Parkinson’s… Whoever Chimera was, he was certifiable as a marksman. That much was irrefutable.
We looked at each other and I uttered the unutterable. “Jesus, Claire, Coombs isn’t our man.”
“Right,” she said. “So, who is, Lieutenant?”
Chapter 107
FOR A LONG TIME, we just sat there, letting the stunning realization, and panic, sink in.
The newspapers, the TV, every sane person in the entire city was celebrating Chimera’s death. Just that morning, I had wiped the murder cases off the board.
“Coombs was trying to tell me something,” I said to Claire, recalling his dying moments. “ ‘One last…,’he whispered, and when I asked him, one last what? he seemed to smile. ‘One last surprise.’ He knew Chimera was still out there, Claire. He knew we would find out. The bastard was laughing at me as he drew his last breath. It has to be somebody else in his group. There’s another madman.”
Claire pressed her lips together. “Lindsay, if I could’ve come back with any other conclusion…”
I didn’t know exactly what to do with this new information. The pattern had fit so seamlessly. Bay View… Chimera. The file in Coombs’s room. And how he had come at me. I couldn’t believe that somehow I had been wrong. And then the question again: If not Coombs, who?
The last thing I wanted to do was go upstairs and shatter the celebration of all the bureaucrats and brass. But at the same moment Claire and I were gaping at each other in disbelief, the real killer was out there, possibly scoping another hit. Jesus, this just didn’t make sense.
“Come with me,” I said, sucking in the sharp pain in my side. I ambled down the hall to Charlie Clapper’s office.
“The returning hero.” The rotund CSU man stood